Banisters
by ElspethInnle08
Summary: Ella finds bad news about Bast. Will there be a war? I don't know, I haven't written the second chapter yet, but here's the first!


**Banisters**

**"As you slide down the banister of life, may there be no splinters pointing in the wrong direction!"**

Ella cheered as she slid off the end of the stair-rail and into Char's arms-again. Life had been good for the king and queen of Frell, excepting the sad deaths of Char's parents, and of poor Mandy. But they had been happy. The prince and princess-Kahni, age 12, and Timothy, age 9, were accepting the responsibilities as royalty, and had already made many friends in Ayortha and Bast. But Ella did not smile as often as Char nowadays. Their newest child, Ilena, was born in less than seven months but Ella did not feel that she wanted another child in this new world. Though she had not said anything to Char, she felt that they would soon be facing strife. Very soon-too soon.

Ella could not sleep. She tossed and turned and felt uncomfortably hot. Eventually she gave up and quietly picked a book from the library, going to the sofa in her dressing room to read. Skipping the spells she had read-power gaining spells needing troll hair, love potions that required you to drink molten iron, and poisons that were too deadly to describe, she came across a healing spell. Beginning to read, she fancied she heard faint voices in the distance.

Gazing curiously out of the tower window, she saw a strange sight. There were tiny pinprick lights moving across the menagerie. They got closer and closer, stopped, travelled, stopped again, and eventually left the menagerie and went back in the direction of Bast.

Worried, Ella reached up to a picture on her wall and pulled it off. Underneath was a small space, from which she pulled Mandy's book. Putting back her mother's necklace that was on top, she opened the book to a random page and began searching for something that would tell her what had just happened. Her hand stopped abruptly at the sight of the word 'theft'. On an opposite page to a drawing of a man with a bird under his arm, was this:

            _Piralain,_

_You will find the bird in the northern section of the Frell menagerie. There will be a theft of it unless you come first. If you can get this bird and two locks of hair from a troll, you will be richly rewarded. You will be equipped with several soldiers to help you. But: THEY MUST BE TAKEN AT MIDNIGHT ON THE NIGHT OF NO MOON else you will be seen! This warning will only come once._

_            Good luck,_

_            Hana, King of Bast_

Ella felt a sickening lurch in her stomach. King of Bast! Why would he want things from the Frell menagerie? Bast had a beautiful haven in its southern plains, why-?

Ella thought she heard Char getting up and, quickly getting up, crossed to the set oak door and went to show him the letter.

.::.

"What can it mean?" Kahni asked after helping Timothy slowly read and re-read Char's copy of the letter. The writing and drawing had disappeared from the book, now replaced by a map of the castles secret passages.

"I think…"Ella forced down a babble of fear that was rising in her. "It reminds me of something I read once. An enchantment. If I could only remember where I read it!"

"Well, whatever it is, they may not have managed to steal the bird. And troll's hair? That has to be impossible!" said Char reassuringly, but something stirred in Ella's memory and she bolted from the room and up the stairs, ignoring the worried shouts of her family.

She ran, panting, into her dressing room, and slightly proud that she had managed to climb four storeys in less that two minutes, snatched the spell book from the sofa and flipped it open.

**FOR POWER**

_Crush two locks of troll's hair and three black grapes into a wooden bowl. Mix with the feather of a Jyyria bird, then place the mixture and the quill in a jewelled chest._

_Warning: This will not come without strife! I seriously suggest, if you are considering this, forget it! It will only come at great cost._

It was that day that the clouds first rolled over Frell.


End file.
